Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T02:38:39.574Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On-farm evaluation of methods to assess welfare of gestating sows

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2014

S. Conte ,
R. Bergeron ,
J. Grégoire ,
M. Gète ,
S. D’Allaire ,
M.-C. Meunier-Salaün  and
N. Devillers
S. Conte
Affiliation:
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Dairy and Swine R & D Centre, Sherbrooke, Canada
R. Bergeron
Affiliation:
Alfred Campus, University of Guelph, Alfred, Canada
J. Grégoire
Affiliation:
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Dairy and Swine R & D Centre, Sherbrooke, Canada
M. Gète
Affiliation:
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Dairy and Swine R & D Centre, Sherbrooke, Canada
S. D’Allaire
Affiliation:
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Montreal, St-Hyacinthe, Canada
M.-C. Meunier-Salaün
Affiliation:
INRA, UMR1348 PEGASE Physiologie, Environnement et Génétique pour l'Animal et les Systèmes d'Élevage, Saint-Gilles, France
N. Devillers*
Affiliation:
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Dairy and Swine R & D Centre, Sherbrooke, Canada
*
† E-mail: Nicolas.Devillers@agr.gc.ca
Get access

Abstract

The objectives were to evaluate quantitative animal-based measures of sow welfare (lameness, oral stereotypies and reactivity to humans) under commercial farm conditions, and to estimate the influence of housing, sow parity and stage of gestation on the outcome of these measures. Across 10 farms, 311 sows were used. Farms differed in terms of housing design (pen v. stall), space allowance, floor type in stalls (partially v. fully slatted), and feeding system in pens (floor v. trough). Lameness was assessed in terms of gait score, walking speed, stride length, stepping behaviour, response to a stand-up test and latency to lie down after feeding. The presence of oral stereotypies and saliva foam were recorded. Reactivity to humans was assessed by approach (attempt to touch the sow between the ears) and handling tests (exit of the stall for stall-housed sows, or isolation of the animal for pen-housed sows). Only stride length and walking speed were associated with lameness in stall-housed sows (P<0.05 and P<0.01). In stalls, the probability that a sow was lame when it presented a short stride length (<83 cm) or a low speed (<1 m/s) was high (69% and 72%, respectively), suggesting that these variables were good indicators of lameness, but were not sufficient to detect every lame sow in a herd (sensitivity of 0.39 and 0.71, respectively). The stage of gestation and parity also influenced measures of stride length and walking speed (P<0.05). Saliva foam around the mouth was associated with the presence of sham chewing and fixture biting (P<0.05). The probability that a sow presents sham chewing behaviour when saliva foam around her mouth was observed was moderate (63%) but was not sufficient to detect all sows with stereotypies (41%). A high discrimination index was obtained for behavioural measures (aggressions, escapes) and vocalisations during the approach test (stalls: 78.0 and 64.0; pens: 71.9 and 75.0, respectively), the number of interventions needed to make the sow exit the stall during the handling test for stall-housed sows (74.9), and attempts to escape during the handling test for pen-housed sows (96.9). These results suggest that these measures have a good power to discriminate between sows with low and high reactivity to humans. Finally, the outcome of several measures of lameness, stereotypies and reactivity to humans were influenced by the housing characteristics, sow parity and stage of gestation. Therefore, these factors should be considered to avoid misinterpretations of these measures in terms of welfare.

Keywords

behaviourlamenessstereotypiesreactivity to humanspig
Type
Full Paper
Information
animal , Volume 8 , Issue 7 , July 2014 , pp. 1153 - 1161
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium 2014. Parts of this are a work of the Government of Canada, represented by the Agriculture and Agri-Food Agency of Canada. 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bergeron, R, Badnell-Waters, AJ, Lambton, S and Mason, G 2006. Stereotypic oral behaviour in captive ungulates: foraging, diet and gastrointestinal function. In Stereotypic animal behaviour: fundamentals and applications to welfare (ed. G Mason and J Rushen), pp. 19–57. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, UK.Google Scholar
Broom, DM, Mendl, MT and Zanella, AJ 1995. A comparison of the welfare of sows in different housing conditions. Animal Science 61, 369–385.Google Scholar
Buddle, JR, Madec, F and Fourichon, C 1994. Investigations préliminaires sur les méthodes d'appréciation des troubles locomoteurs chez la truie. Recueil de Médecine Vétérinaire 170, 29–36.Google Scholar
Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC). 2009. Guidelines on the care and use of farm animals in research, teaching and testing. CCAC, Ottawa, ON, Canada.Google Scholar
Canadian Pork Council. 2010. Animal care assessment – animal care at work. Canadian Pork Council, Ottawa, ON, Canada.Google Scholar
Chapinal, N, de Passillé, AM, Weary, DM, von Keyserlingk, MAG and Rushen, J 2009. Using gait score, walking speed, and lying behavior to detect hoof lesions in dairy cows. Journal of Dairy Science 92, 4365–4374.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clouard, C, Meunier-Salaün, M-C and Devillers, N 2011. Development of approach and handling tests for the assessment of reactivity to humans of sows housed in stall or in group. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 133, 26–39.Google Scholar
Cronin, GM and Wiepkema, PR 1984. An analysis of stereotyped behaviour in tethered sows. Annales de Recherches Vétérinaires 15, 263–270.Google Scholar
Dewey, CE, Friendship, RM and Wilson, MR 1993. Clinical and postmortem examination of sows culled for lameness. Canadian Veterinary Journal 34, 555–556.Google ScholarPubMed
Edwards, SA 2007. Experimental welfare assessment and on-farm application. Animal Welfare 16, 111–115.Google Scholar
Flower, FC and Weary, DM 2009. Gait assessment in dairy cattle. Animal 3, 87–95.Google Scholar
Fraser, AF and Broom, DM 1990. Abnormal behaviour 1: stereotypies. In Domestic animal behaviour and welfare (ed. AF Fraser and DM Broom), pp. 305–317. Baillière Tindall, London, UK.Google Scholar
Grégoire, J, Bergeron, R, D’Allaire, S, Meunier-Salaün, M-C and Devillers, N 2013. Assessment of lameness in sows using gait, footprints, postural behaviour and foot lesions analysis. Animal 7, 1163–1173.Google Scholar
Harris, MJ, Pajor, EA, Sorrells, AD, Eicher, SD, Richert, BT and Marchant-Forde, JN 2006. Effects of stall or small group gestation housing on the production, health and behaviour of gilts. Livestock Science 102, 171–179.Google Scholar
Hemsworth, PH, Brand, A and Willems, P 1981. The behavioural response of sows to the presence of human beings and its relation to productivity. Livestock Production Science 8, 67–74.Google Scholar
Hulbert, LE and McGlone, JJ 2006. Evaluation of drop vs. trickle-feeding systems for crated or group-penned gestating sows. Journal of Animal Science 84, 1004–1014.Google Scholar
Johnsen, PF, Johannesson, T and Sandøe, P 2001. Assessment of farm animal welfare at herd level: many goals, many methods. Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A – Animal Science 51, 26–33.Google Scholar
Jørgensen, B 2000. Osteochondrosis/osteoarthrosis and claw disorders in sows, associated with leg weakness. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavia 41, 123–138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keeling, L 2009. Defining a framework for developing assessment systems. In An Overview of the Development of the Welfare Quality® Assessment Systems. Welfare Quality® reports no. 12 (ed. L Keeling), pp. 1–8. Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.Google Scholar
Main, DCJ, Clegg, J, Spatz, A and Green, LE 2000. Repeatability of a lameness scoring system for finishing pigs. Veterinary Record 147, 574–576.Google Scholar
Martin, P and Bateson, P 2007. Measuring behaviour, an introductory guide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Mosnier, E, Dourmad, J-Y, Etienne, M, Le Floc’h, N, Père, M-C, Ramaekers, P, Sève, B, Van Milgen, J and Meunier-Salaün, M-C 2009. Feed intake in the multiparous lactating sow: its relationship with reactivity during gestation and tryptophan status. Journal of Animal Science 87, 1282–1291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parikh, R, Mathai, A, Parikh, S, Chandra Sekhar, G and Thomas, R 2008. Understanding and using sensitivity, specificity and predictive values. Indian Journal of Ophthalmology 56, 45–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ringgenberg, N, Bergeron, R and Devillers, N 2010. Validation of accelerometers to automatically record sow postures and stepping behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 128, 37–44.Google Scholar
Salak-Johnson, JL, DeDecker, AE, Horsman, MJ and Rodriguez-Zas, SL 2012. Space allowance for gestating sows in pens: behavior and immunity. Journal of Animal Science 90, 3232–3242.Google Scholar
Schenck, EL, McMunn, KA, Rosenstein, DS, Stroshine, RL, Nielsen, BD, Richert, BT, Marchant-Forde, JN and Lay, DC 2008. Exercising stall-housed gestating gilts: effects on lameness, the musculo-skeletal system, production, and behavior. Journal of Animal Science 86, 3166–3180.Google Scholar
Scott, K, Laws, DM, Courboulay, V, Meunier-Salaün, M-C and Edwards, SA 2009. Comparison of methods to assess fear of humans in sows. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 118, 36–41.Google Scholar
Tuyttens, F 2007. Stereotypies. In On farm monitoring of pig welfare (ed. A Velarde and R Geers), pp. 41–46. Wageningen Academic Publisher, Wageningen, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Von Wachenfelt, H, Pinzke, S and Nilsson, C 2009. Gait and force analysis of provoked pig gait on clean and fouled concrete surfaces. Biosystems Engineering 104, 534–544.Google Scholar
Welfare Quality® 2009. Welfare Quality® assessment protocol for pigs (sows and piglets, growing and finishing pigs). Welfare Quality® Consortium, Lelystad, The Netherlands.Google Scholar